[LIT] "... Addressing Middle Level Literacy"

[Ginny White]

On Nov 17, 2006, at 5:53 AM, skosmoski at aol.com wrote:

> Bill, and all--
> this kind of dscussion always intrigues and scares me a bit. As a
> reading teacher, I am wary of the "everyone teaches reading syndrome"
> for a few reasons. First of all content teachers immediately get upset.
> They don't want to teach reading--they will be the first to tell you
> they don't know how and that scares them. All kinds of walls go up.

Mary Anne, you are so right.  With our school-wide effort, we have 
stressed that we are working with "reading to learn" as opposed to 
"learning to read," using the same focus as you mentioned.  When 
strategies are presented as ways to help kids learn how to read 
textbooks in different content areas, it seems teachers are more open 
to ways that will help get their subjects across.  At our recent FCTE 
conference, Kylene Beers (newly elected VP of NCTE) stressed that we 
must get the textbooks off the shelves and scaffold the skills so that 
kids can read them - helping content area teachers understand how to do 
this successfully is a bit more appealing that just saying "everyone 
teaches reading."  Interestingly, our science teachers are sharing many 
of the great reading strategies in their brand-new science textbook.  I 
think it helps when teachers see a strategy applied to their subject, 
and it really helps if we're all working toward a common goal.

Ginny White
Fernandina Beach Middle (FL)